Bernard Schoenburg: Jim Kaitschuk interested in 99th House seat

JIM KAITSCHUK, who has years of experience dealing with the Illinois legislature, is another Republican interested in the 99th House district seat now held by Rep. SARA WOJCICKI JIMENEZ.

Kaitschuk, 46, of rural New Berlin, was legislative liaison for various state agencies and was House liaison for then-Gov. GEORGE RYAN before working for a dozen years as executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers. He then worked for Gov. BRUCE RAUNER for more than two years, leaving his $130,000-a-year job as director of legislative affairs this spring to become operations manager for Borgic Farms, a Montgomery County business with 6,200 sows.

Jimenez, R-Leland Grove, has said she’s not seeking a new term in 2018.

“I’ve always had an inkling or a desire to want to potentially run for public office,” Kaitschuk said. “That’s why I’m exploring this as an opportunity.”

Jimenez voted for a budget that included a tax increase, and voted to override Rauner’s veto of that budget. Kaitschuk, while not for a tax increase and wanting a balanced budget, said he can’t say how he would have voted.

“I wasn’t in Sara’s shoes,” he said, and didn’t talk to all the people she did at the time.

He said he is a “very fiscally conservative Republican.” He also said it was “absolutely” his own decision to leave the Rauner administration, given the good outside opportunity.

“I had very good relationships with all those people that were still there, and I have good relationships with those that are there now,” he said of the administration.

Like Rauner, he said, he thinks “Illinois needs reform.” He also said he thinks unions have “an important place,” and his wife, ANGELA, is an elementary school teacher in a Springfield public school, and is a member of the Illinois Education Association.

Asked about the issue of abortion, Kaitschuk said he would “lean much more pro-life.” He also said there are adequate gun laws. He has also worked as a part-time policeman in Leland Grove since 2008, sometimes as much as 16 hours a week.

Kaitschuk was born in Indianapolis and moved to Olney when his late father, a minister, got a parish there. The family moved to Springfield in 1987 when his father was elected bishop for the Central-Southern Illinois Synod for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kaitschuk is not a precinct committeeman but is among Republicans who have submitted resumes to the Sangamon County GOP. The organization is expected to name a preferred candidate by early October.

Kaitschuk said he’s not yet certain if he is running, and hasn’t decided if party backing would affect his decision.

Chicago political activist/radio host DAN PROFT, who has backed some legislative candidates also pushed by Rauner, has been using some of his newspapers and website enterprises to investigate the lobbying work of NANCY KIMME, who served on Rauner’s transition team.

Proft, who chairs Liberty Principles PAC, is also a principal of Local Government Information Services, which has grown to have 29 publications, including the Sangamon Sun.

In one of those publications, Illinois State Wire, is an Aug. 27 story about Kimme headlined: “Illinois political aide turned lobbyist swings for the fences, and connects.” It talks about her range of lobbying clients, some with apparent competing interests.

In a Sept. 7 follow-up in another Proft publication, Kendall County Times, Rep. STEPHANIE KIFOWIT, D-Oswego, said she “sees another broken promise” from Rauner in Kimme’s lobbyist role. Kifowit said Rauner “promised to work against the revolving door of former staffers becoming lobbyists. ...”

The story also states: “The Prairie State Wire has reported that she (Kimme) has secured more than $16 billion in state contracts for 74 clients.”

Proft told me that it was "time for Kimme to be pulled out from the shadows and into the public square. She is a quintessential example of so much of what is wrong with Illinois' political culture."

Kimme said the stories make it look as if she alone got money for entities that have long gotten state funding. She said she was never on Rauner’s state or campaign payroll, and was in the comptroller’s office, where she was chief of staff to late Comptroller JUDY BAAR TOPINKA until her death in December 2014, and continued in that role for the comptroller that Rauner appointed, LESLIE MUNGER. Kimme said she was not subject to the revolving door law, and besides that, she left government shortly before Rauner’s executive order on the subject took effect on Feb. 15, 2015.

She was named to Rauner’s transition team before Topinka’s death.

“He never liked Judy,” Kimme said of Proft, “and so consequently he and I have never gotten along.”

Among activities of Proft’s Liberty Principles PAC was a multimillion-dollar effort to help Rauner-backed BRYCE BENTON in his 2016 GOP primary against Sen. SAM McCANN, R-Plainview. McCann won.

Pierce in 96th

GARY PIERCE, who lost a GOP primary for the 96th House District in 2016, says he is running again, and he quit as a precinct committeeman because the Sangamon County Republican Party is backing another candidate.

Pierce, 57, was an appointed committeeman in the Woodside 6 precinct. He lost a 60-40 primary race to CINDY DEADRICK WOLFER in 2016 in the 96th, though she later dropped out of the race and Republicans did not name a replacement to the November ballot to challenge Rep. SUE SCHERER, D-Decatur.

For 2018, the Sangamon County GOP is backing Springfield Ward 2 Ald. HERMAN SENOR in the 96th.

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